There are two methods that we might use to accomplish this goal, but before we can make any progress with either of them, we need to refresh our memories of three key facts concerning the process of dying and the division of the parts of the soul. The first thing to remember is that the core sense of identity, the actual continuity of consciousness, abides within us. The second thing is that all of the key insights and evolutionary advances in consciousness achieved by the soul are lifted up to Asgard upon death. Since our initiatory Work has long since enabled us to touch the Divine spark within ourselves, these powers and this knowledge, acquired over many lifetimes, is available to us to call upon already. What we have yet to do in our Work, but what is most vital if we are to be balanced and truly coherent Selves, is to go down instead of up, to discover the third thing, the memory of those aspects of personality and those forgotten skills which lie entombed with the dead in the halls of Hel.
So it is to Hel that we must look if we are to resurrect and Remanifest the shades of our previous Selves, who lie in slumber awaiting the call to reawakening. In so doing, long dead memories will be restored to us, along with the skills that supplement them. We will have taken a hugely significant step in making ourselves complete. This is a Work which goes far beyond the usual 'past life recall' of reincarnationists.
There are two ways to accomplish this Work. The first way is to go to the dead: the second way is to bring the dead to you. Both methods will be discussed here.
In the first method, you will prepare to take a spirit journey, as was described in chapter five. You should project your consciousness out of your physical body and descend down the shaft of Yggdrasil to Svartalfheim. Spend a little time to get your bearings there, then descend still further until you arrive in the freezing, gloomy, mist-shrouded world of Hel.
You will need to take time to allow the region to unfold within your mind. Its symbolism will express itself in terms pertinent to you, but I always see Hel as a fogbound land of vaults and tombs, with shadowy wraiths creeping through the mists.
Follow the direction in which your instinct guides you and you will come at last to the memorials to your previous selves. There will be a large vault, like a hall, nearby. Enter this and your past (and some say future, once facility with the method is won) selves will be seen standing in the alcoves. They will begin to awaken as you approach them, stirring in their slumbers. From them you will learn long forgotten skills and you will achieve a great sense of completeness as they reintegrate themselves with your current manifestation. You will now realise the truth that nothing is ever truly lost or forgotten.
For those who have access to the archives of the Order of Leviathan in the Temple of Set, the 'Apep Workings' of Ipsissimus James Lewis have strong echoes of this theme and can be read as a practical example.
The second approach is to bring the dead to you, awakening your past selves by ritual invocation and revivifying them with the sacrificial mead and bread offered at your altar. This ritual should be constructed by your own genius, guided by your deepest instincts (those parts of you which have most affinity with your previous manifestations). The basic formula should be akin to that used to call upon other wights described in this chapter, using the tools and basic steps of ritual previously discussed in this manual.
This is obviously highly skilled magic, requiring a powerful focus of mind and an open channel to the subconscious in order to receive and correctly interpret the communications of these earlier selves. But if you have practised diligently up to this point in the curriculum, you should be perfectly capable of such skilled magical application.
Repeat the invocations frequently, building up a strong rapport with these earlier shells of yourself, until you have reawakened their identities fully and begun to incorporate them within your own current being. This will be a far more transformative experience than you can possibly imagine whilst simply reading these words. It is something that must be experienced.
In time, you will become aware that these selves are accessible by your consciousness at all times. You may simply reach within your mind and 'remember' what it was to be these people and to utilise their skills. You will have accomplished a great deed of Self-integration.
Nidhogg – The Eater of the Dead
It is during this process of Self-integration that you will encounter the last of the three great Dragons of the Eddas: Nidhogg, who lurks at the very deepest root of the World-Tree, gnawing upon it, spewing venom as he consumes the shells of the dead.
Nidhogg is a devourer, a breaker down of aggregates, and in reawakening the essences of your past selves, you are effectively undoing Nidhogg's work, causing the Dragon to regurgitate that which it has devoured. This leaves you with an angry and hungry Dragon to contend with.
What form will this Dragon take? You will have to fight Nidhogg in the guise of those past selves you have now taken as a part of you. Each of these personalities had its own flaws, guilts and debts, each one of them a tooth of the Dragon. You will benefit from the sense of completeness as you integrate these aspects of your manifestations, you will gain by the rediscovery of their skills, but you will also be burdened by their failings and weaknesses. These are the fangs and claws of the final Dragon, and because they are of you they can consume you utterly if you are not careful. Having learned to control and channel positively your own obsessions, you may now fall prey to those which were buried a long time before your present birth. Nidhogg is the most insidious and deadly Dragon of all.
Although this process is an enormous initiatory step, it will initially seem like a retrograde one. Having (hopefuly) brought all your own insecurities, blind spots and bad habits to heel, you will now find yourself burdened with a host of new ones, threatening to bring you down. You will find yourself behaving in irrational and unexpected ways and not knowing quite why. In other words, when you begin this Work of necromantic Self-integration, you had better be ready for some bizarre twists and turns and be prepared to fight your corner.
At this stage, I should really need to give you little more guidance in how to deal with these matters. You should already know. Indeed, there is litle I could advise you, since the phantoms from your own buried past and the manner of their manifestation will be utterly unique to you. Fight them and assert your Will as you have done all along, always holding onto that Divine consciousness you touched in the previous chapter, when you came to understand the symbolism of Sigurd awaking Brynhild and the two plighting their troth. Do not allow yourself to become bewitched and forget your promise, as befell Sigurd in the saga.
So Nidhogg, the final of the three great Dragons of the North, is the accretion of the debts, the grievances and the unfulfilled desires of your past selves. This is a mighty and worthy foe to conquer. But if you can conquer and subdue the Dragon, gaining the use of those past skills and knowledge, broadening your outlook and your very sense of Self in the process, then this Dragon has one final Gift to offer when brought to heel. Nidhogg is the most dangerous of Dragons, but also the most transformative, for according to the Voluspa, the Seeress' Prophecy in The Poetic Edda, this Dragon is immortal indeed, surviving Ragnarok. The last thing the Seith woman sees is this ancient Dragon of Chaos rising on mighty wings after the fall and renewal of all:
66. From below the dragon | dark comes forth,
Nithhogg flying | from Nithafjoll;
The bodies of men on | his wings he bears,
The serpent bright: | but now must I sink.
- translated by Henry Adams Bellows
So the Initiate transforms “the dragon dark” into “the serpent bright” as the “bodies of men” [his past selves] are borne upon his wings, arising in victory even after the upheavals of Ragnarok.
Speaking of Ragnarok, it is time to deal with these issues in the final chapter...
CHAPTER NINE
TWILIGHT OF THE GODS
And so at last we come to the Twilight of the Gods, the Götterdämmerung, the day of Ragnaro
k. Loki, bound and cursed after the death of Baldur, returns leading the legions of frost and fire giants, to destroy the cosmos with the fire and ice from which it was created. Yggdrasil burns, the World-Tree shivered to its roots. The chosen warriors of Odin fare forth to battle. The All-Father Himself is swallowed and slain by Fenrir. Jormungand, the Midgard Serpent, loosens its coils and the world rocks in consequence, unbound and crumbling. Thor kills the great Serpent, but is Himself slain by the fumes of its venom. The whole world falls to fire and the sword. The order of the Gods is overthrown and Chaos rages unfettered.
But the last remnants of Gods and men are sheltered within Yggdrasil, emerging upon a new plain when all is done, a place unformed where a new pattern of worlds may be shaped. Odin is represented here by his surviving sons, through whom He may be reborn according to the Northern soul lore we examined earlier. And yet He may still be here in one of His aspects as more than just the potential for Remanifestation, for Hoenir is said to survive Ragnarok, and Hoenir is listed as one of Odin's many names and an aspect of the All-Father. But in either case, the Earth Remanifests, and Odin will Remanifest too in the new creation.
Remanifestation
All things that are shaped and ordered out of Ginnungagap must one day resolve themselves back into that primal Chaos. They were born from the potential to be, they expressed themselves through manifestation, once their expression is complete they must unravel and assume new forms. This is the lesson of Ragnarok. Even the abode of the Gods cannot stand for ever.
One day, the world itself will cease to be. One day, the sun will go out and the solar system will perish. All of these processes are patterned and foreshadowed in Ragnarok. One day our personal lives in the fleshly bodies we now inhabit will end. But in all cases, something will Remanifest. No atom of matter, no focus of spirit, will ever cease, all will be reshaped in new forms and will come into being once more.
For the Initiate, who experiences new horizons and personal metamorphosis on a scale unimagined by his less enlightened fellows, Ragnarok is a recurring pattern in life, as the edifices of the old must be brought down to clear a way for the new. The Initiate at this level is a Destroyer as well as a Creator. All that exists is the moment, the perception of the now and the Will to reshape that now. The moment is destroyed as soon as it is perceived, to be replaced by a new moment, nearly the same, but not quite, reshaped by Will. We now walk through life in the knowledge that every moment may be utterly different from that which preceded it and that which will follow it. We understand that “I Am Now” is the sole law of existence.
This is a state of being and a state of mind that is attainable only through the exercises and practices suggested in the previous chapter. The Initiate must have conquered the concepts of time and space, his psyche effectively outgrowing the bounds of the Universe and existing Outside. This is a more permanent realisation of the Draconian practice of 'Opening the Eye in the Void' which was introduced and discussed earlier in the book. This is that which Edred has termed the 'omnijective perspective', when both the inner and outer universes are lesser in scope than the simple fact of consciousness and perception itself. The Initiate now sees and interfaces with patterns and currents of manifestation directly, not with their outer appearances.
In this way, we rise upon the Dragon's wings, soaring above Ragnarok. We create and destroy worlds, but are neither chained to them nor brought low with them. We become “the dragon dark ... the serpent bright” and are whole beings.
This chapter is of necessity short, for there are no exercises I can describe, or rituals to perform. This stage of Initiation is a series of Remanifestations and realisations which occur spontaneously when all of the prior stages have been performed properly and effectively. Telling you how to go about your Work now would be like telling Groucho Marx how to light his cigar.
Initiates at this stage should have reached the understanding that all things must undergo a Ragnarok, not just once, but periodically. Will and Desire bring forces into manifestation, our own earthly lives included, but the manifest universe must continually break down its parts and regenerate itself or it will become clogged up, preventing the manifestation of newly emerging Will and Desire. This is amply illustrated by the tale of past selves which you investigated in the previous chapter.
But we also understand that the 'I' which is the Dragon ascendant, rising out of the Darkness on wings of Light, is a thing larger than the bounds of these worlds; it persists outside of time and space and projects itself within those realms as it chooses. This is the Eye Opening in the Void once more, now understood as an ecstatic, timeless moment that permeates everywhere and everywhen, nowhere and nowhen.
The power and the understanding are ours, our very own. Now, as we rise on the wings of Nidhogg over the New Heaven and the New Earth, we must decide: In what way will I shape these things? What will I bring to pass?
FURTHER READING
The reading list provided in Apophis contained core texts which dealt with the Draconian curriculum of Initiation taught by the Circle of Initiates who call themselves the Order of Apep. That list remains useful for obtaining an overview of magical practice and philosophy as a whole; the list which follows adds a purely Northern element to enhance that collection of titles.
For those who wish to restrict their interests solely to the runic Mysteries found in Ægishjálmur, pursuing the Dragon of the North exclusively, the reading list which follows will be found to be complete and sufficient to their purpose.
There exist many other texts, some of them very fine, but the list is purposely restricted to those which I have read personally and have derived value from.
I have limited the list to texts which are available to the public at large. Some publications, such as the Gildisbók, are restricted to members of the Rune-Gild, hence are not listed here. Initiates who are interested will find it worth their while to approach the Rune-Gild directly with a view to affiliation.
Those wishing to contact the Draconian Circle of the Order of Apep for further information or dialogue having studied Ægishjálmur may email [email protected].
Rune Magic
The titles listed in this section all pertain to the actual practical application of runes in the magical field.
FUTHARK: A Handbook of Rune Magic, by Edred Thorsson, published by Weiser
FUTHARK is the first of Edred's runic trilogy, the book which spearheaded the contemporary revival of true esoteric runology. It focuses upon defining the meanings and symbolism of each rune, drawing upon the rune poems and giving plentiful advice on stadhagaldr. The book's emphasis is heavily upon the practical magical application of runes and methods of applying their effects in life.
Runelore, by Edred Thorsson, published by Weiser
Runelore is the second of Edred's runic trilogy and is the core volume of the series. It delves into the origins of runes and the various permutations of the runic 'alphabet' in different times and places. It explores the theory and underlying structure and philosophy of runelore in far greater depth than its predecessor volume and is probably the single most indispensible title in this list.
At the Well of Wyrd, by Edred Thorsson, published by Weiser
The third book in the runic trilogy, this title focuses exclusively upon the use of runes in the practice of divination in an authentically Northern manner. It revises the basic runic meanings to suit the purposes of divinatory enquiries and offers several methods for reading the runes.
Rune-Song, by Edred, published by Runa-Raven Press
This is a book with accompanying CD or audio tape and is the best guide available for the essential knowledge of how to 'sing' the runes. Each rune-song is recorded in full, plus the texts of the various rune poems in both their original languages and English translation.
The Nine Doors of Midgard, by Edred Thorsson, published by Runa-Raven Press (originally published by Llewellyn)
The Nine Doors is Edred's curriculum of runework, intended
to give the practitioner a thorough philosophical and practical knowledge of the runes on a deeply internalised level. This course of work complements the Ægishjálmur curriculum admirably, filling out some of the broader runic areas which are not focused upon in this Draconian Work, and providing a good framework to develop the essential knowledge to make possible the Draconian operations.
Northern Magic, by Edred Thorsson, published by Llewellyn
In this title, Edred focuses upon the sixteen rune system of the Younger Futhark, which was used most widely in the Viking Age. It is just as valid a runic expression as the Elder Futhark, but has a different dynamic in use. The book also includes a very useful section describing the process of designing and activating Helm of Awe-style bindrunes, which are key to Northern Draconian sorcery.
Rune Might, by Edred Thorsson, published by Llewellyn
Edred explores the teachings, theories and magical practices of the German rune magicians of the early Twentieth Century, along with the 18 rune Futhork that they devised for their use. Because of the circumstances and occult environment in which this system was developed, this particular style of runology is the one best suited for mingling with other occult systems, as it is itself a bit of an eclectic mish-mash, reflecting the popular occultism of the time as much as genuine tradition. Nevertheless, it remains a coherent and powerful phase of runic development and the runic yoga exercises developed by the pioneers of that time are of particular interest and value.
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